


Hold My Hand As I'm Lowered

by LuciAndTheMushroomGang



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Amnesiac Mollymauk Tealeaf, Beauregard Lionett & Mollymauk Tealeaf Friendship, Caduceus Clay Has a Crush, Fatherly Gustav Fletching, Hands, Jester Lavorre - The Friend We All Need, Luci's Weird Headcanons, Luci's Weird Metaphors, Minor graphic content, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha Friendship, Mollymauk Tealeaf Has Chronic Pain, Mollymauk Tealeaf Lives, Mollymauk Tealeaf's Backstory, Motherly Veth Brenatto, Not Beta Read, Nott | Veth Brenatto's Backstory, Other, Yasha is a Softie (Critical Role), hand wavy timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26100643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuciAndTheMushroomGang/pseuds/LuciAndTheMushroomGang
Summary: 'Before he opened his eyes to the all consuming darkness that surrounded him, and before he pulled in a harsh breath through rattling lungs, he felt the cold. It was bone deep, deeper even, so deep that he felt it in the marrow, and in every tiny space where joints grated across the stiff planes under his skin. He was empty and the cold had been greedy to take up residence in the places rendered void of life.'OR - Mollymauk wakes up alone, and proceeds to fill his life with people who love him in their own unique ways.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Mollymauk Tealeaf, Caduceus Clay/Mollymauk Tealeaf, Fjord/Mollymauk Tealeaf, Gustav Fletching & Mollymauk Tealeaf, Jester Lavorre & Mollymauk Tealeaf, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Essek Thelyss, Nott | Veth Brenatto & Mollymauk Tealeaf, Polynein
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31





	1. Oh, Your Cold Hands Are Clutching At Cloth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [criticalmonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/criticalmonster/gifts).



> Title, and chapter titles, are from the Noah and the Whale song of the same name, from the album 'Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down' which is my favourite album, and y'all should go and listen to it. 
> 
> This fic is about Mollymauk learning the world and the people in it through the stories their hands tell - I'm very bad at communicating and interpreting social cues, but I think that you can learn a lot about people through their hands, and I wanted to write about that. Back at it with the niche content!
> 
> This fic is for criticalmonster, who left a nice comment on another fic of mine called 'Black Holes and Revelations'. This isn't beta read, because I have exactly two friends.

Before he opened his eyes to the all consuming darkness that surrounded him, and before he pulled in a harsh breath through rattling lungs, he felt the cold. It was bone deep, deeper even, so deep that he felt it in the marrow, and in every tiny space where joints grated across the stiff planes under his skin. He was empty and the cold had been greedy to take up residence in the places rendered void of life. The chill had been greedier than the roots of flowers that had wound around his limbs, seeking out any traces of nutrients to fuel their own existence. The chill had been greedier than the bugs nesting in matted hair, searching for safety where the ground offered none. The only thing more hungry than the cold was the blackness blanketing and surrounding his form where it lay curled in it’s dark and icy shroud. The earth had taken him in and wrapped him in a tight cocoon, draining his life to strengthen its own growth. The land had taken him in a pressing embrace, and the first thought he had was that he needed to get out. But Gods, were his hands too cold to scrape their way through frozen ground. 

He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see anything but shadows and tendrils of the night sky bleeding into black. There was no more ground to clear and yet he stumbled in circles, turning every which way, and the harder he tried to find something, anything, the more his eyes fell on nothing but darkness. He forced splintered bones to move like a homing beacon, searching for light where there was none to be found. Looking up, there was only more pitch dark, no moonlight, no blinking stars, no lanterns, or sunlight, or roaring fires. He had thought that if he could just claw his way to the surface, the world would offer him respite, but even his body failed him as he tried to let out a desperate scream, and the air only parted to let him hack up soil clotted with blood. He couldn’t see enough to differentiate between hastily wiped bloody tears, the earthen red wiped from his mouth, and the thin streams cascading from cracking fingertips. He couldn’t see the way his claws had been filed jagged by the soil and rock, or the way his skin had been torn as he tore through the dirt. He couldn’t see the way raised scars across palms were chafed and split as his body had split through the mound that concealed him. No matter how often he blinked away fresher tears, he still couldn’t see how his hands looked as though they had tried to find their way through a solid wall. He couldn’t see a beginning or an end to the obsidian night, or the pain that had no starting point. But Gods, were his hands so cold not even his fresher blood warmed them up.

He didn’t know how, but he knew about walls - strong, tall, sturdy and powerful. Foundations and safety nets that protected from the elements and dangers beyond them. Something deep inside of him knew how it felt to be pressed close to something so supportive, something safe and steady that sheltered him. His mind was as empty as his body and soul, but for the briefest moment, he remembered being wrapped in powerful arms, held in a warm and secure embrace, hidden behind walls where nothing bad could creep into all his blank spaces. As quick as it had come, the memory was gone, but he chased it back into the hole in the ground. He chased it until the walls surrounding him were made of tightly packed dirt and chips of bone that had slipped loose from rough skin. He chased it until his knees gave out and he collapsed in on himself from the effort of holding up a puppet on severed strings. With nowhere to go and no escape from this hell, he lay back down and begged for respite with every shaking inhale and tremor that ran through his fingers. He tried his very best to find that memory again as he pressed his back against the ground, hoping to mirror the vague longing for something solid that had once surrounded him. It was gone. It was all gone. He reached and reached for something, anything, but his hands only sought out the empty air. Everything that he knew, everything that he had ever been, every lick of warmth and fleeting feeling was gone. He reached for a face, a memory, a name that could have been his. But Gods, were his hands always empty. 

He couldn’t tell the time, and no sense of it’s passage came to him as he waited there for something. He couldn’t place how many maggots had fallen from his hair, displaced and knocked loose as he learnt his own body, tracing cracks in horns. He couldn’t count the mushrooms filling in the crevice in his chest where the skin pulled tight and warped. He couldn’t keep track of each aching breath and accompanying shudder when his mouth filled with bile, blood, and black soil. He couldn’t follow the passage of time as he lay stock still and let fresh snow take him in as it took over the surrounding darkness. He couldn’t know the length of the icicles crystallising on clothes and freezing a layer on top of colder skin. He couldn’t tally the hours, days, his deep red eyes looked for a break on the horizon and were met with nothing. He couldn’t tell the time when he let his eyes fall shut and later opened them only to find his vision taken up by a solid figure - A brick wall of a woman with wings stretching beyond his line of sight, clear crystal tears tracking paths down her cheeks, and clothes tough enough to repel falling snow. He didn’t know the time, the day, or the month that she took his frail form in strong arms, wrapped him in a powerful embrace, and pressed him into a sturdy chest. But Gods, were his hands clinging to her robes like she was the last thing to tether him here. 

/////////

The first hands he ever saw were hers. Her hold on him never faltered as she carried him as far as she could manage, traversing miles of unknown terrain until they arrived at an inn where she could look out the window without seeing the hole he had lay half-frozen in. Just the thought of finding him there left a sick and solid pit in her stomach that she couldn’t shake away until every bug was carefully taken from his hair, the roots had been disentangled where their stubborn grip clung to horns, and the mushrooms had been gently pried from his chest. She put them to one side, and days later, when they refused to die, she wrapped them in the tattered scraps of his shirt and tucked them in her bag - A quiet vow to never let the earth take hold of him again. Her hands were the first he saw, and they cautiously washed his hair and cut out the tangles until curls bounced more than his steps ever could. Her hands helped him pull on a spare shirt that draped over his lithe frame, but chased away just a little of the cold. He didn’t know it then, but he would go on to wear it every night until something even warmer would stop the nightmares from getting in. Her hands held the waterskin, and rubbed along his spine when every attempt to talk left him heaving with the effort, and her hands tore apart bread when his own ached too much to push the food through chattering teeth. When the darkness cleared from his mind, he meant to ask her if her hands once cared for someone else, but he didn’t have the words to phrase the question. Her hands were the first he saw, and he clung to them at any moment he could. 

He didn’t remember his name, but she told him hers was Yasha, and he liked the way it sounded, even if he couldn’t repeat it back to her. He didn’t know his name, his age, or where he came from, and when she told him that he was a Tiefling, he wished that he could have told her what a relief it was to know that he didn’t climb his way up from the Hells. He didn’t remember his name when a carnival passed through town, and he watched the lanterns pass by their window, listening as she read him the names he couldn’t decipher, etched on a cheaply made flyer. He didn’t remember his name when she carried him to the largest carnival tent and asked a brightly coloured man if they could stay a while. She learnt to be his voice, and he sat quiet, shaking hands tracing patterns on the strangers coat until the man draped it over him and took him under his wing. He said his name was Gustav, and Yasha wrote it down for him underneath her name, and tucked the loose paper in the pocket of his new coat. He was asked every day, but he still couldn’t remember, and when all he could gasp was “empty”, his chest ached when Gustav smiled. He wondered if it was a taunt, until the man decided on ‘M.T’ and he seeked out Yasha’s hands as a thoughtful gaze had taken over a Human face. He didn’t know his name when Gustav called him Mollymauk Tealeaf, Molly to his friends, and being empty didn’t feel quite so scary anymore. He didn’t know his name, but Gustav did, and it was those nurturing hands that added it to his slowly growing list. 

Molly’s hands still ached where the cold lived in his bones, and his claws were still chipped in their beds of broken skin. Molly’s hands still ached, and Gustav was ageing but his hands were young and patient. His hands were patient as they showed Molly how to embroider pretty patterns on his technicolour coat, and patch up the holes with ragged strips of old circus tents. His hands were tough when they hammered down pegs, pitching their flags on a briefly occupied field, but they were still so careful when Molly held the pin in place and learned to make the carnival his home. Gustav’s hands grew rougher with time, but they were still soft when he wiped at bloody tears until The Peacock learnt not to fall from the silks, slip with his swords, or trip over skirts when he danced. Those hands lingered lightly as the troop passed around bottles and bread, only letting go when he was sure that shaking hands could keep their grip. Gustav’s hands were caring, nurturing and warm, and Molly kissed the palms when the carnival fell apart. He would come back one day and press gold into those hands, paying back every kindness that he was ever shown, and tell fortunes by tracing lifelines. Gustav’s hands were the most nurturing that he had ever known, and he kept hold of them until the Nein guided him to a brand new home. 

/////////

Mollymauk was not the most receptive to learning. He couldn’t read thick books and heavy tomes, tavern signs and notice boards. He couldn’t comprehend sheet music glanced at over the shoulders of pretty bards. He couldn’t write in the margins of the Expositor’s notes, and when he learned the party’s names, it was not in his hand that they were added to his list. When they spent the night somewhere new, and he added to his tarot deck using borrowed ink, he knew that he could draw, but knew that the other Tiefling was better. He didn’t follow new friends to libraries, and bookshops seemed like a bore, but he learnt his new family, and it was the Goblin’s hands that he studied first. 

She called herself ‘Nott the Brave’ and it confused him at first, but he learnt that it was a testament to character when he found her searching through his small collection of things. He didn’t have much to his name, but she was deft and picked his pockets clean. He learnt to laugh when she passed the coin back, and he tipped the bartender before all the change was made hers. He learnt indulgence when he joined the Chaos Crew, and kept an eye as nimble fingers sought treasures where there were few. He learnt not to ask when she poured loose buttons on his bed, and he chased away nightmares by stitching them to coat until his joints grew stiff. Mollymauk was not receptive to learning, but Nott’s fingers taught him a secrecy he only found in her. 

He had to leave the party for a while, and when he returned with a man who had a shock of pink hair, he wouldn’t talk about what had happened to him. He wouldn’t talk about anything, but the group were patient and invited him into conversation anyway. He wouldn’t talk, but he did when he searched for a Goblin and couldn’t seem to find her. There was a Halfling woman in the Goblin’s clothes, and she told him that her name was Veth, and her body looked different but her hands were familiarly tricky. His coat was weathered, and close enough to scraps, but he still felt her fingers rifle through the pockets when she thought he wasn’t looking. He didn’t have much - He had woken up again with nothing and hadn’t gathered much since, but he had let her search him and turned a blind eye. When she pulled away, he was surprised that his pockets felt heavier, and put off looking through them until he could find a quiet moment of his own. She was crafty and talented, and he cried bloody tears to find his tarot cards, swords, jewelry, and his trinkets, stashed in his pockets as though he had never been without them.

Veth was happier in her new body. It took him a while before he could remember how she used to be, but everybody said that she smiled more, and drank less, and she was kind enough to let him braid flowers in her hair until his fingers got stuck in the rigid shape. She was happier, and her body was different but her hands were motherly. She made sure he got to eat before the others did, and brought him the first cup of tea from every pot that the tall fellow would brew. She was matronly when she tucked him into thick, warm blankets, and stroked his hair, telling him stories to chase away the terrified look in his eyes, even if she did fondly threaten to shoot him with a bolt if he told the others. She was warm, soft and caring, and he thought of the paternal nature of an elderly man wrapped in bright circus colours when she steadied his hands on the reins of a cart. Veth was happier in her new body, and he thought that he was too. 

/////////

The first hands Molly ever saw that looked like his own belonged to a man that reminded him of the elegant paintings they had seen in the homes of many nobles on their travels. The colour wasn’t a perfect match, slightly more grey in a way that made Molly wonder if he was slowly dying too, until he met another Drow in the city and learnt that there was more beauty in the world than he could ever hope to discover. The first hands Molly ever saw that looked like his own were a little off in colour as they carried a grey tint when the moonlight caught lilac skin just right. The first time Molly noticed the complexity of the colour, it reminded him of the way he had looked so gravely pale in his early days, and he proceeded to go to every subtle effort to chase away an early death from the Drow, keeping him as warm as an icy form ever could. When he later stepped out of the strange home and saw other far less decadent citizens, he was acutely aware that they all carried the ethereal night sky tint, but he never stopped trying to chase the cold of death away from Essek. 

Molly had never much cared for gold or jewels or fine things, and gave it away at every opportunity, but that attitude changed when it struck him that their new friends' hands were like the most enticing treasure held just out of reach. They were always tucked under a finely woven cape, hidden behind a delicate shroud, as though they were the last secret he was able to keep to himself. The first true memory that Mollymauk made of this new member of their party just so happened to be the first moment he ever saw slender fingers and porcelain smooth skin. His mind always seemed to be flooded with the pitchest black, and it was inescapable when they took up residence is Rosohna, but the house made his family happy, and laying on the grass counting slowly blinking stars quieted the demons the most when realisation struck him that their spattering matched the dusting of freckles along angular cheekbones. It had been a passing thought, and the Moonweaver had smiled down on him and blessed him with a fluttering cape he could catch sight of in the corner of his eye. When Molly’s mind was too foggy to draw his name to the forefront, the Drow had extended a delicate hand and introduced himself as Essek. Molly couldn’t breathe when he noticed how they fitted together like missing pieces, slowly making him whole again. 

The first hands Molly ever saw that looked like his own felt so very different when they lingered and laced with his. When Essek had offered his palm and a fond smile, allowing Molly to read his future in fine lines, he had looked for a red eye glowing up at him from satin soft skin and found nothing but relief to know that a little of the darkness had left this soft soul alone. When he pined for the love talked about in the books his friends read around campfires, Essek noticed him worry at the scars slashing through his fingers, and replaced stark white bands with extravagant silver pieces that slotted perfectly together with his own rings when he held shaking hands under the privacy of a beloved cloak. When his joints froze up and he dropped his swords, jagged claws dragging over carnival glass, time stopped only for them as Essek pressed kisses into fingertips and sheltered him with magic as the battle waged on. Molly couldn’t breathe when the tenderness wrapped around his heart, slowly warming his body again. 

The first hands Molly ever saw that looked like his own were clinging to him in place of somebody long gone. It wasn’t a story he was ever supposed to know, but a simple Zone of Truth spell and a few strong cocktails flooded his mind with memories that flooded his glass with bitter tears. It could have been a tragedy for the ages, professed by bards and etched in glass panes - A love too quickly lost, a ritual too hastily prepared and too quickly failed at, a body in a shallow grave and a man left alone waiting for a lover who was yet to come home. The first hands Molly ever saw that looked like his own had mapped out this body and he had never known, they’d held him steady as a gentle voice called him a different name, and they’d pressed pressure to wounds when the plan had gone south, taking body and soul down with it. Molly couldn’t breathe when a choked out voice confessed to a life once spent together, but the words wove the memories until he could start to remember shards of happiness during chaotic days, and those hands were content to walk a new man home. 

/////////

The first time that Mollymauk had woken up, on the very first day of his life, he had been surrounded by the deepest, darkest black. Darkness that had clouded his vision, and seeped into his skin, filling the cavities of his bones and replacing any light that may once have lived within him. His claws had tore and broke and bled as he clawed his way up, up, up, desperate to escape the darkness that had choked him and swarmed into his lungs with every rasping breath he tried to take. It had felt like an eternity before his fingers were kissed by cold air, the Winter breeze stinging at fresh wounds, and as he scrambled out, dragging a tired body onto solid ground, he had blinked open his eyes. To darkness. Vast, surrounding blackness, void of even a slice of moonlight. The world around him had been dark and terrifying, and as he raked in some fresh air and filled his lungs, he screamed in a broken and desperate attempt at a yell. Terror had blanketed him and carved his screams through the air, and while he knelt there in the dirt he had dug his way out of, he swore that he would do everything in his power to live in full colour - never letting that darkness take him again. The first time that Mollymauk had woken up, on the very first day of his life, he had been alone, and every night since then, the friends that he had made and the lovers he had taken ensured he never woke up alone again.


	2. Well, I Fell In Love With the World In You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'In hindsight he realised he was lucky to have met them at all, or else the pottery would have stayed gathering dust in the shop window and he never would have found the true depth of love that could exist between people. That day, Molly learnt his name again, the letters travelling on a collective breath like a prayer, and he kept quiet as his mind flooded with old memories.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The vibe of this chapter feels different to the first once, but I wanted to finish this, so I put on a Mumford and Sons mix, slammed a coffee, and turned to my writing notebooks to use old drabbles as inspiration. I seem to have unintentionally strayed from Molly's point of view, but there's only so much time I can spend staring at the document and trying to fix that, so I hope y'all take this as it is and enjoy this second instalment of Molly needing a hug!

The Nein barrelled by his home, stopping only for tea and a shelter from the elements on their quest to liberate their friends from a place he didn’t like to think about. Their initial visit had been brief, and nobody had ever thought to tell Caduceus what Mollymauk had looked like when they had talked of his recent passing with such deep sorrow. They wove such intricate and heartfelt stories about the man’s inherent goodness, and all of his extravagant deeds - They talked about the depth and breadth of love he had to offer despite his pain, and they talked about how ridiculous he could be, but nobody had ever told him what the Tiefling looked like. So when Caduceus had sent his new friends on their way, and had travelled into town for supplies and first caught sight of a mysterious and lonesome purple Tiefling watching him as he traversed a path from the local town back to the Blooming Grove, it was no surprise that he only acknowledged it with a gentle hum and kept it to himself. It was no surprise when, a week later, he saw the same being following his cart a ways behind him on the path out of town, and merely catalogued the information for later. He’d only had three cups when the Nein first came to visit, and they had promised to come back once they had found their friends, and in hindsight he realised he was lucky to have met them at all, or else the pottery would have stayed gathering dust in the shop window and he never would have found the true depth of love that could exist between people. Of course he would have told the Wildmother if the presence felt threatening but the being following in his shadow never tried to fight him, ambush, or steal from him, so Caduceus assumed that he was just a wayward soul who was a little lost on their path through life. Caduceus could understand that. The Firbolg’s curiosity only grew as he became more and more aware of the Tiefling in the background, who took camp a ways enough from him to not be suspicious, but close enough to be intriguing. The Wildmother didn’t offer much in the way of guiding him in that particular situation, in fact, all she offered him was gently sly smiles felt in the warmth of the sun, and a pleasant feeling of longing that melted into his bones every time he caught a flash of purple in the corner of his eye. 

Caducues wasn’t a self-indulgent man, motivated by greed or his own agenda and desires. The only selfish thing that he had ever done was leave behind the Grove, and even that was questionable with regards to any potentially negative intent - He had left in order to find a cure for his forest, and because the Wildmother had told him to, and if he had partly left because he didn’t want to be alone, then so be it. Most everything that he had ever done had been for the plants, his family, the departed, and now for the group of misfits he called a family. Perhaps not even the decision to approach the figure had been selfish, because he had been concerned about the Tiefling as he cast the message spell that his siblings had taught him (all at once, whilst yelling the instructions over one another as Caduceus brewed tea one afternoon). “Hello there, friend. May I have some tea with you?” He had reached out across the feet of treeline that separated his home from the strangers camp, speaking the words in his head, unsure if the being was sleeping peacefully around his fire. He had reached out on a wim, an urge, a divine push to offer help to a person lost in a wood that could bring dangers to those not used to traversing the land. He had reached out, and the deep cadence of his voice met the recently resurrected body and eased his fears, ebbed away at the cold he knew he had felt before and couldn’t place, curled around him like the tattered tapestry draped over a once again frail body. Caduceus had reached out and the Tiefling had followed the voice like a trail of breadcrumbs leading up to the heavens, and when he first saw a shock of pink hair and a bright smile, he had reached out in return, collapsing into waiting arms, and hands that bought him back from the depths of his mind with a spell that seemed second nature. 

Every night following that, Caduceus had reached out to him with kind words, kind hands, a kindness so deep that he felt he could drown in it if it wasn’t for those very hands anchoring him to solid ground. Caduceus had only had three cups, and had been alone when the Nein first stumbled on a surprising house in the forest, their heaviest baggage being the loss of a dear friend, a lover, the brightest among them. When they followed the path back to that house days later, they were struck by how curiously the world continued on around them. Caduceus had nine cups, and a fragile body pressed close to him, and they left all their baggage at the door in favour of gentle caresses, salted tears, and a radiant joy that shone brighter than the Gods light. That day, Molly learnt his name again, the letters travelling on a collective breath like a prayer, and he kept quiet as his mind flooded with old memories, and when they had all finished holding onto him to take a rest, he didn’t feel worlds away as he reached out to be pulled into a body of silken fur. 

//////////

The shallow grave felt like yesterday, but it had already been a year. His life was full where his mind still felt empty, and his coat kept him warm where his bones kept their cold. He had noticed Caleb shake, but he was fire incarnate, and where he hated it in himself, Molly chased the kiss of flame. He learnt he was fire resistant when he woke up gagging on the taste of dirt, and his sudden presence beside the watchful Wizard made the fire leap and catch his calves. Caleb wasn’t a healer, but warm hands checked for damage and it was the first time he could move his legs without his bones protesting the effort. Caleb wasn’t a healer, but every gentle touch and searching caress pushed the ache from it’s residence under his skin. He had once heard a story of fire and ice, but he’d never been told that the hands of a Wizard would let heat linger longer than the campfire clung to glowing but dying embers. 

He had once heard a story of fire and ice, but sitting around burning logs, he had heard stories about a past full of pain, love manipulated and stolen, and tarnished black with ash, and Molly had felt ghostly hands reach out and clench tightly around his heart when Caleb had spat that he would never make the mistake of love again. Molly had listened to those words and wished he could have frozen time just to brand a fleeting touch into his skin so that he could let it fester in place of a deeper thread of intimacy. He had once heard a story of fire and ice, and a travelling bard in a little known tavern they had stumbled upon on their travels made sure he heard it again until Molly had taken a seat at a shadowed corner table, lit only by the curling flames in the dim fire, as though his proximity to the heat would ever be enough to take the place of a man he could never shake thoughts of. The story played on a loop in his head until his hands had shook where they cradled a glass barely full with two fingers of neat, single-malt scotch only vaguely watered down, the glass cracked and reading the name of a local brew he couldn’t pronounce. Molly had taken a sip and took respite in the way the liquor bit the back of his throat and chased away the bittersweet story, thinking himself free of the vice-like hold on his heart until a cat curling around his ankles bought him the memory of a rugged Wizard reading to him from a forgettable book, with a commonplace plot, all the colour of the words and the well thumbed through pages lost to Molly when his attention had settled on vibrant orange hair and ash tinged fingertips. 

Molly longed for those hands and his own had grown cold in response to the rain trailing down the window panes across the tavern. They’d ran home from the day’s adventures, laughing in an imitation of what he could only imagine childhood had been like, and Caleb’s coat had still been drying in the corner, clashing shades of brown against the alcohol stained wooden slats lining the walls. Molly’s hands were cold but his mouth was warm. The flavour of an upper-class scotch set down on a working-class table had had the chance to sit and make itself home against the soft skin of his gums, and as he had tried to lick away the taste, he wondered if Caleb’s lips burned as hot as his hands after a carefully crafted spell. Caleb could have been watching, and Molly could have been more intoxicated as he caught the gaze of the cat and posed a question to his master - “If you kissed me,” he had wondered through the haze of second hand smoke curling out of the fireplace, “would you taste the alcohol on my tongue? Would you bite my lip to chase the flavour, and pull me closer to you as you chased away the taste with your own exquisite grin? Would you envelop me in the warmth of your body, until I no longer needed whiskey to warm my chest and throat? Would I feel your skin burn as I knocked it back and dropped to my knees, worshipping at the most sacred altar? Would you answer my prayers as you offered a silken salt chaser and declared your love for me in soft tones of pride?” Caleb could have been watching, and Molly could have hidden the tears running over his fingers in a reflection of rain on window panes. Caleb could have been watching, and Molly could have thought of anything other than burning hands burning through skin until they clutched at his heart and clouded his head. 

/////////

The first thing that Molly thought about when he had stepped into their hot tub had been “oh Gods, it’s too hot”, having forgotten to pour in any cold water whilst he had let the steam and water level rise, lost in the pages of a beautiful picture book Jester had given him on the day she had declared his birthday. He’d occasionally glanced away from hand painted images of the party, just to watch the tub fill, and it wasn’t so much that he had forgotten the cold, more so that he made no effort to add any, and still made no effort as he sunk into the heat, watching lavender scented bubbles pool around his submerged skin. He lay back after a while, and kept his head out of the water, wondering if the action might help him stay afloat in more ways than one. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of the vanilla scented candles burning in every available corner of the room, flickering against the roots of the mighty tree making it’s home around his body until he couldn’t quite bear the feeling of being enclosed. As he lay there, knowing the cold Winter existed just beyond stone walls, he had tried to kid himself into believing it was summer, what with the way his exposed skin started to sweat in the steam filled room. He wondered if the moment would have reminded Jester of a decadent childhood, youth spent in fragrance clouds and fanciful delights. He wondered if her hands would have rubbed lotion into aching muscles and cracking bones, and filled the silence with stories of how the sugar sweet smell reminded her of bakeries and breakfasts.

Eventually, he opened his eyes, and the dim glow of slow burning candles jolted him back to the truth of the cold Winter day he fought so hard to escape from. He breathed out the cold air sitting in his lungs, and inhaled the warmth of the room and the home until it filled him up in place of company he longed for. The sleet beat against the frost coated stone in a ghostly backing track he could trick himself into replacing with the joviality of Jester’s laugh if he tried hard enough. He had grabbed the hand knitted wash cloth made by an artist’s hands and rinsed away the sheen of sweat with warm water, momentarily wishing the circumstances felt softer around the edges. Later, when he took that same wash cloth and gently rubbed away peach scented soap from the thick scar on his chest, he thought about somebody else’s hands taking the cloth and the bubbles with it. He thought about how the weight of existence could be washed away with the gentle touch of a man, or the calming touch of a dear friend who never seemed to care much for boundaries. When he thought of Jester, it wasn’t sexual, the way he thought of her soft hands rinsing his tired skin, it was a kind of gentility he couldn’t remember having felt before.

For a while, Molly lost himself in the cooling cup of tea propped up in a hand-painted porcelain coaster, and the page after page of pictures he had flicked through. On one finely detailed page, a delighted Jester tried on a skirt in a second-hand store they had visited when low on gold, and she had felt validated and real in her femininity in that private moment when Beau was shown smiling at her and making dreams come true. When he stepped out of the hot tub and tied a deep purple towel around his waist, and thought of the long blue skirt still hanging in Jester’s cupboard, the steam in the room blurred the towel into an illusion of soft fabric. He left the longing behind with the bubbles. Sitting on his bed, he thought about the way that his newfound shame was a rather curious feeling. He thought about how a passing comment from a clerk in a costume shop had put him off his favourite trousers, and how a skirt wouldn’t make him any less of a man if putting one on made him feel pretty. 

His feet had carried him to a brightly painted room before his mind had caught up with the movements, and he found himself knocking at her door until the feeling reverberated through sore bones. Jester’s hands were satin soft and silky smooth, manicured and paint splattered and close to pristine where she fastened the skirt for him to twirl in front of mirrored glass, and those delicate fingers clapped a victory song when he sent her a toothy grin and a nervous request to help him find something beautiful of his own. Jester’s hands were reassuring when they squeezed his and helped him walk through cluttered streets and push open the door of a quiet family shop, and they were cautious as they trailed over fabrics he had never so much as imagined, until they stopped on bright colours and captivating embroidery, offering it to him and letting touches linger when he took it from her with shaking hands. Jester’s hands had smoothed over his spine as she tucked his shirt in and pulled the laces of the corset tight, soothing him and holding him steady where his hands trembled as they braced his body against the wall. Jester’s hands had held him close and tight when he looked at her with glittering tears, and her hands were quick as she handed over gold, grasping Molly as they danced back home. With a woman so full of joy so close to his side, he didn’t have the sense to so much as worry what anybody else would think of him. They danced in their own private carnival, and he was glad to find the fond memories in someone so full of life and love. 

/////////

When Molly came back to them a second time, he was assigned a room without second thought, as though all of the Nein had just been waiting to add the final puzzle piece where there was previously only absence. They were the last ones at the tavern table on a bitter Winter night - Molly too afraid to rest and wake up to the stark white he knew all too well, and his company enthralled by a weather so different to what he had known at the coast. Molly had spent the last few beats of silence nursing an empty tankard as though he could read his fortune in the cracked wooden base, when his companion offered respite in the form of a question, “could I watch you pray over your swords?” Those bright ocean eyes glanced down at a curved blade that caught dim light, but Molly didn’t follow his gaze and instead catalogued a scar cutting through an eyebrow, and his fingers itched to trace it, but they locked around his cup until he had to pry them loose just to push himself up from the bench. There was a dazzling smile being offered to him, hope carved in the curled corners, but deep red eyes focused on the allure of filed tusks the colour of canvas. It took a moment before he remembered a boat, and a human woman yelling “captain”, and the punching steady rhythm of the needle carving that bright eyed smile into the skin of his thigh. He traced the lines where they rested under his trousers, nodded his affirmation and remembered that the half-Orc’s name was Fjord. It couldn’t have been long since they had arrived in town, but he had forgotten which room belonged to him and stood at the top of the stairs feeling deep panic creeping up his spine until a strong, guiding hand settled at the small of his back, and stopped the feeling seeping through his mind. Fjord’s hands were guiding later too, when Molly stood by the window just holding the blades and watching the moon, knowing the two belonged together but unsure how to connect the dots. He had agreed to this but couldn’t find the right actions, or soft prayers to whisper, so Fjord took the swords and Molly watched him wrap them in the technicolour coat before kneeling beside them on the ground. Molly listened to him pray, sweet words directed at the Wildmother, but the magic soothed him anyway, and when he opened his eyes to bask in the moonlight, it only seemed right that the acolytes of lovers became lovers themselves. That night, Fjord’s hands guided his own, teaching him a different kind of worship.

In retrospect, it made sense that the sailor amongst them would be the greatest navigator, but the first time that Molly had woken up with his head more foggy that the stormy sea nights, he hadn’t thought to seek out a guide and instead pulled blankets tighter around him as though their threadbare embrace would protect from the elements. When hastily muffled shaking sobs had roused his roommate from sleep, Molly only hesitated a moment as strong arms pulled him into a vast chest, holding him close until he sunk into the company and his tears sunk into skin. When heaving breaths melted away into softer sobs, and the whispers offered up unanswerable questions, Fjord’s hands were there to trace the fine lines of muscle and bone, scars and permanent pictures. Most nights he couldn’t find the signs that he was looking for, but with the delicate glide of callused fingers over skin, he always found his way back to himself. He couldn’t read maps, or chart a path using the night skies, or follow a trail of ley lines across the sands, but he learnt more about navigation than any of those things could ever teach him when confident touches tracked the path across his skin as though it was the only map that Fjord would ever need. 

Just like he had learnt Fjord’s hands, the man had learnt his, and the way the skin grew translucent when the cold sat too deep and the nights grew too long. Fjord had learnt his hands when he had climbed up from the earth the second time, and he had learnt the way the grave clung to nail beds and claws even after Caduceus had rinsed it all away. Fjord had learnt the way the purple seemed closer to grey in those first few weeks, paling where life was not present to fill the absent spaces. Molly’s hands were more his own now, but he had ducked under the water at the Menagerie, looking for signs of their dear friends family, and the sea smoothed stone hand reaching up from the sand and silt had caused the breath to leave his lungs too quick to recover from. He had ignored the ache in his chest as he found himself unable to rake in a second inhale, swimming until he could curl his own hands around a delicate stone wrist and pull, praying to gods he knew and gods he didn’t that this was just a stranger. His throat had burned when he swam back to the surface, coughing up the cold water, and feeling far colder as blurry eyes looked around for a familiar flash of purple. Molly’s hands became enveloped in Fjord’s the moment he had rushed over to the collapsed man, and battle hardened fingers traced across scars, claws, tattoos and the bright red eye looking up through his palm. Fjord had learnt Molly’s hands, and learnt them again and again until he knew for sure that this man was alive. Even then, he had refused to let go again, and couldn’t consider the thought until he had something new to replace the memory of stone clawing its way out of land. 

/////////

Molly learnt Beau’s hands through learning her fists. She never hit him, not any of them unless battle called for it and their bodies were not their own, or friendly competition in taverns and towns encouraged her to playfully swing. He learnt her fists as he watched her elegant dance across battlefields, a beautiful duck and dive around friends and foes that could rival the sway of skirts spinning across carnival tents. He learnt her fists when they fell into one another around campfires, her hands shoving his away when he reached for hers and brushed fingertips over bruising knuckles. He had learnt her fists in the fleeting moments she allowed him to touch the split skin and soothe it before pushing him away and throwing his cards into the winds, and in those moments, Molly had wondered if the only time the two would ever be close was in the way her wounds mirrored the colour of his skin as he reached out for a heart that didn’t want his. Beau hadn’t liked him then, because she hadn’t understood how long he had spent blinded and naive before he realised that growing into personhood only mattered if he was happy. Beau hadn’t liked him when he’d wrapped her hands in bandages and asked her why she went into everything with fists over feeling, and the most honest she had ever been was in telling him that she was running, and that was her choice, and she needed to give herself the opportunity to know that there was more out there in the world for her than just a series of mistakes and people who meant as little to her as she meant to them. She’d watched as he ignored the trembling and pulled out cards she didn’t believe in, offering them to her with a hopeful smile and the suggestion of guidance, and she’d watched the flash of pain in fragile features when she laughed and told him they meant nothing. If she had had the benefit of hindsight then, she would have scribbled down more sketches of him, and wrote down more notes about the way he offered kindness and bared his soul when he bared his palms, and she would have fixated on details that differed to the ones she did push into the corners of her mind. If she had had the benefit of hindsight then, she would have given Molly what he wanted when he extended offers of friendship.

The battle had waged on where his body had fallen, and Beau could have killed Lorenzo - God’s knew she had the rage to do so - but she looked down at his outstretched hand and dropped to her knees at his side, taking hold and hating the way her fingers looked in his. She kept a tight grip on his slowly cooling skin and catalogued the way the purple of his skin matched the purple of bruises blossoming over her own knuckles, and she held on impossibly tighter, as though her strength could pull him back to them all. She knelt and stared at their interlaced fingers, and hated her own for never being more gentle with his cards, his hair, his body. She knelt until Caleb pulled her away, and she would have gone kicking and screaming if not for the sudden knowledge that she had spent so long doing that that she had forgotten to be softer with the people she loved until they were gone. He had been her best friend, her favourite person, and she wasn’t ready to give that up, but she had aged in the space of a battle, and aged with each minute until Molly was laid to rest in the earth. She knew that they had places to be and family to rescue, but with his cards grasped tight in one hand, and her other hand resting on the fresh soil mound covering his body, Beau learnt that she couldn’t shy away from doing things that seemed difficult and undesirable. So she said goodbye because that was the least she felt she could do, and the very least she felt she owed to him after never taking the time to tell him how loved he was. As the few that remained had set up camp that night, Beau took first watch and sobbed at the moon, telling Molly that he had to come back, so that she could find him and be the friend he deserved, and until then, she would try to find herself. Someone else took watch after that, but she was none the wiser as to whether or not they were listening as she talked to a crescent moon about all the places she planned to visit in order to make herself the friend he deserved for her to be. Exhaustion took her when the dawn took the sky, and the final words she whispered were the promise that when the time came, she would put him above everything else. 

/////////

Years had passed since they had first found each other in a town on the border of their interwoven lives, and they hadn’t been back there for the longest time, but when they sat around a weathered table in a new tavern, he thought of that day. He still couldn’t read the sign hanging in the light breeze outdoors, and he couldn’t remember the name of the town, but he sat quietly as he watched the lives of all the people he loved, flickering in front of him. He’d heard rumours that life flashed before folks when they died, and he couldn’t recall that ever being his experience, but he knew beyond any shred of doubt that if his life were to end here, he would see the most beautiful pictures of women he considered his best friends, men he considered his soulmates, and a family he considered his home. It didn’t matter where the tavern was, because he knew that nothing was the same, and that it wasn’t where they had met. Events hadn’t been what any of them had wanted, and yet they came together in spite of everything, like broken pieces of a beautiful mosaic. Molly knew, with more certainty than he had ever known anything, that if he was granted a last request, all he wanted was to hold these people. Molly knew, with more certainty than he had ever known anything, that this may not have been where they had met, but the grand wide world had bought them to this moment where they all came together in perfect technicolour. And Gods, were his hands so warm, and his heart so full.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, kudos, constructive criticism, and good vibes are always welcomed and appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write the rest of the Nein into this fic, but the document has been sitting on my laptop for a week now and i've gotten no further with the drafted sections for the remaining characters. I've also been super busy because I'm moving soon, so I haven't had the chance to find any inspiration. If it does come to me, i'll post the rest of the characters as a second chapter. I'll update the tags when/if I get to adding the next chapter!
> 
> For now, I appreciate kudos, comments, constructive criticism and good vibes :)


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